


feels like we only go backwards

by towine (snippetcee)



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:29:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3169871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snippetcee/pseuds/towine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bard, Thranduil, and the one night stand that doesn't actually happen.</p><p>(Or, the <em>Crazy, Stupid, Love</em> AU.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	feels like we only go backwards

There is a newcomer at the bar this time, chatting with a friend. Dark hair, sun-warmed skin, broad shoulders. Thranduil notices him because he notices _everyone_ , but this stranger in particular has his curiosity piqued.  
  
It’d be easy, he thinks. Walk up, introduce himself, offer to buy him a drink. Thranduil has honed and perfected this craft—what words to say and the tone of voice to say them in, how to make people gravitate into him and follow him home, to his bed. Thranduil knows this game better than he knows many other things.  
  
Except: _Bard_ , Thranduil discovers, doesn’t follow things quite according to plan.  
  
“Let me buy you a drink,” Thranduil insists, tilting his head in a way he knows makes his hair spill nicely down one shoulder.  
  
Bard notices, which is good. Thranduil almost smiles to himself.  
  
That is, until Bard says, “No, thank you, really, I— I don’t need another drink.”  
  
Bard’s friend, a dark-haired woman, looks amused as her gaze flits between the two, sipping her drink to hide her smile.  
  
“What do you need, then?” Thranduil asks, his voice brought to a deliberately low register. He leans in towards Bard, just slightly.  
  
He can see the darkness of Bard’s pupils, the way his lips part, just so, on an inhale.  
  
“I need,” Bard begins, licking his lips. Thranduil’s eyes catch the movement.  
  
“I… I really need to get back to the kids now, it’s late,” Bard finally says, getting up from his seat with a quick nod to his companion. She looks disappointed, but she lifts her drink to him in farewell.  
  
“’Night, Bard,” she says, giving him a look that says, _Are you sure you want to go now?_  
  
Bard’s eyes leave hers to meet Thranduil’s, briefly. “… Good night,” he says, with finality, and then he’s gone.  
  
Kids. Well. Thranduil would be lying if he said he wasn’t at least a little disappointed. But he isn’t eager to tangle himself in the affairs of a married man, as attractive as he may be. It’s more trouble than Thranduil is willing to deal with.  
  
He sips his wine, and thinks there will be other nights and other people, anyway.  
  
-  
  
Thranduil didn’t think that was the last he’d see of Bard, but he certainly didn’t think their next meeting would be like this: a few nights later, pouring rain, Bard entering the bar with his clothes completely drenched.  
  
“You,” he calls out to Thranduil, making everyone in the room turn their heads. But he doesn’t look at any of them, just marches straight towards Thranduil, yanks him forward by the lapels of his—very expensive—suit, and kisses him breathless.  
  
Thranduil reacts immediately, wrapping his arms around Bard’s waist, pulling him closer, deeper. Bard’s clothes are soaking wet, but Thranduil chooses not to worry about his suit and instead focuses on the heat of Bard’s mouth, the solidness of his body beneath Thranduil’s hands.  
  
After they part, Bard is still close enough for his breath to ghost over Thranduil’s skin when he asks, “Remember me?”  
  
Thranduil gives a slow nod, once.  
  
“Still find me attractive?”  
  
Thranduil nods again.  
  
“Still want to take me home?”  
  
Thranduil tightens his grip around Bard’s waist, and breathes, “Yes.”  
  
Bard swallows, and Thranduil’s eyes follow the bob of his throat as Bard pulls him forward and says, “Then let’s go.”  
  
-  
  
“Is wine all you drink?” Bard asks when Thranduil hands him a glass. He takes it and downs it in one go. Thranduil is honestly a little impressed.  
  
Thranduil tilts his head. “Do you have a problem with wine?”  
  
Bard shrugs, but holds his empty glass out instead of complaining. Thranduil, amused, hands him his own full one. Bard drinks all of that, too.  
  
“So,” Bard draws out, pacing a little nervously around Thranduil’s immaculately decorated living room, like he feels out of place and doesn’t know where to settle himself.  
  
“So,” Thranduil says.  
  
“What’s your next move?”  
  
“… My next move?”  
  
“That’s how this works, right?” Bard gestures to the stereo, the wine. “Turn on some music, get me drunk, and then what?”  
  
“And then whatever you want, Bard.”  
  
“… Well. Okay, then,” Bard says, and he’s stopped pacing, thankfully, but he’s still awkwardly standing apart from all of Thranduil’s furniture.  
  
Thranduil asks, “Do I make you nervous?”  
  
“No! No, honestly, I—” Bard sighs, the set of his shoulders loosening slightly. “It’s just. It’s been awhile, is all.”  
  
Thranduil does a subtle glance over Bard’s hands, and notices the absence of any wedding ring. Now that he considers it, he doesn’t recall seeing one at their first meeting, either.  
  
“The kids keep you busy these days, I take it?” Thranduil says, stepping closer.  
  
Bard blinks, as if surprised Thranduil even remembers he has kids. Then, also stepping forward, he says, “It is a little hard to get time for myself, these days.”  
  
“So what made you come find me tonight, then?”  
  
“Kids are staying at a relative’s. And I had the most god awful day at work,” Bard tells him. When he’s close enough, he hooks his fingers into Thranduil’s belt loops, tugging him forward slightly. “Don’t really want to talk about it, actually, because I was hoping to just forget it all with… this.”  
  
“Well then, I’ll do my best,” Thranduil says. He brings his hands up to the sides of Bard’s neck, uses his thumbs to tilt Bard’s jaw up until their gazes meet. Bard is shorter than Thranduil, but he stands tall and solid, despite the nervous flutter of his pulse.  
  
“So.” Bard clears his throat. “Do you— here, or…?”  
  
Thranduil pulls him toward the bedroom.  
  
-  
  
“Your hair,” Bard breathes between kisses, “is unbelievably long.”  
  
“So I’ve been told,” Thranduil murmurs with an amused quirk of his lips. He has Bard pressed flush against the mattress, the two of them having lost their shirts somewhere between here and the living room. Thranduil’s fingers work at unbuckling Bard’s belt while his lips claim Bard’s mouth again, and there aren’t so many words, after that.  
  
At least, until Bard pulls away and says, “No, seriously, I can’t believe this. It’s—it’s lovely, really.”  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
“What shampoo do you use? My daughter complains all the time about how she wishes she could grow her hair longer—”  
  
“Bard.”  
  
“… Sorry, I’m killing the mood aren’t I?”  
  
Thranduil chooses not to answer, just kisses Bard again and works at getting rid of the rest of their clothes, so he can make Bard forget words entirely.  
  
“But really,” Bard continues, and Thranduil is three different kinds of frustrated at this point, “how is it so soft and smooth? You must have an entire cabinet for hair products or something.”  
  
“…”  
  
“You do, don’t you.”  
  
“Bard,” Thranduil sighs, again.  
  
“It’s fine if you do, I mean, obviously whatever you’re using is working.” Bard runs his hand through Thranduil’s hair again, fingers scraping lightly against his scalp. Thranduil’s sigh, this time, is pleased.  
  
He presses his body forward until they’re skin to skin. Thranduil can feel the steady rise and fall of Bard’s chest beneath his, and for a moment he stills in the warmth of it all.  
  
Then he realizes Bard has begun braiding Thranduil’s hair over his shoulder.  
  
“Tilda would be having a field day with your hair,” Bard says, mostly to himself. Thranduil is now positive Bard has had too much to drink, except his fingers are surprisingly nimble. Like his hands have spent ages practicing this, and now braiding has become second nature.  
  
It’s… not entirely unpleasant. But then Thranduil remembers the real purpose of taking Bard back to his home, and it most certainly wasn’t to _braid hair_.  
  
Before Thranduil can speak, Bard asks, “Do you have a rubber band or anything?”  
  
He’s holding the end of Thranduil’s braid in his fingers. The plait is simple, but very neat—the result of much practice with children, Thranduil is sure.  
  
He takes a moment to just look at Bard, contemplating where exactly this night is going.  
  
Bard’s fingers stroke the wispy ends of Thranduil’s hair almost reverently. The white-gold of it contrasts so starkly against Bard’s skin, and Thranduil remembers, suddenly, just how long it’s been since anyone’s braided his hair.  
  
“I should have hair ties in my closet,” Thranduil says.  
  
Bard’s expression lights up, pleased at Thranduil actually obliging him. “I bet your closet is enormous, too,” he muses.  
  
“I suppose you’ll have to see for yourself.” When Thranduil gets up from the mussed sheets of his bed, Bard follows close behind.  
  
-  
  
They find a hair tie, and Bard uses special care when he secures the end of Thranduil’s braid. Thranduil thinks perhaps they can get back to business again, except Bard gets distracted with admiring the entirety of Thranduil’s very extensive wardrobe.  
  
“I swear, you have shirts in colors I never even knew existed,” Bard says. “How could you even wear all these? Or are you one of those people that wears something once, and then never wears it again?”  
  
“Is that what you think?” Thranduil asks, smiling. He’s certainly not going to admit he has, in fact, done that in the past.  
  
Bard just grins and says nothing, moving on to admire Thranduil’s equally extensive collection of colognes and perfumes.  
  
Afterwards, they move on to exploring Thranduil’s personal gym, because the subject comes up somehow and Bard decides he wants to see it right at this very moment.  
  
“Do you really need yoga mats in every color, too?” Bard says incredulously.  
  
Somewhere along the line, Thranduil mentions his interest in getting a home archery range, which Bard becomes immediately excited at, telling Thranduil that archery has been a hobby of his since childhood.  
  
He notices Thranduil has a dart board, too, and nearly has a go at it until Thranduil gently steers him away. He trusts Bard’s aim, but perhaps not after so much wine.  
  
They open another bottle, at some point, and share it between them while Thranduil shows Bard the rest of his home. Because why not, really, when he’s already seen so much of it. Occasionally, Thranduil will take a moment to crowd Bard up against a wall and kiss him. Or sometimes Bard will do it to Thranduil, or they’ll meet each other halfway. But it’s unhurried, languid, natural in a way Thranduil didn’t expect to feel with an almost-stranger.  
  
They make it back to the bedroom, eventually, after Bard has finished browsing through Thranduil’s large collection of DVDs.  
  
“Dirty Dancing? Really?” Bard asks when, together, they flop back onto Thranduil’s mattress.  
  
“Don’t even pretend you don’t love that movie.”  
  
“I do, but I just—I didn’t expect it of you, I guess.”  
  
“What did you expect?”  
  
“That you would have mostly—I don’t know, artsy movies, or something.”  
  
“Dirty Dancing _is_ art.”  
  
Bard laughs at that. It’s warm, pleasant. Thranduil thinks he’d like to hear it again.  
  
Mulling over the events of the night, Thranduil also thinks this isn’t how he typically shares his nights with the people he picks up at bars. He wonders why the fact doesn’t bother him so much. He wonders why it’s different, with Bard.  
  
Thranduil licks his lips, before saying quietly, “Ask me something personal.”  
  
For a second, Bard looks confused. Then he turns contemplative. “How about… your family. Tell me about them.”  
  
Thranduil thinks, then takes a breath. “I have a son,” he says.  
  
Bard looks surprised.  
  
Thranduil continues, “He’s studying abroad, at the moment, which is why he isn’t here with me. But he calls or texts when he can. The archery range is actually going to be for him, because it’s something he loves, too.  
  
“His mother…” Thranduil begins. He can feel Bard reach out to take his hand, carefully, almost hesitantly. “His mother—my wife—was the one who taught him. She died many years ago.”  
  
It still aches, sometimes, for Thranduil to say it. But it hurts a little less with Bard here.  
  
Bard squeezes his fingers comfortingly. “My wife died giving birth to my youngest, Tilda,” he says.  
  
Thranduil squeezes his fingers back. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Bard gives him a small, but honest, smile. “It was hard, at first, but those three—my son and my two daughters—they mean everything to me. And sometimes, all you can really do is keep moving forward, for their sake.”  
  
Bard shifts, pressing in closer to Thranduil. “Though,” he says quietly, looking Thranduil in the eyes, “there are some things I do want for myself.”  
  
A strange swell of emotion catches in Thranduil’s throat. He feels almost foolish for it, but he was the one who asked for personal, in the first place. Bard isn't what Thranduil expected or asked for, but their edges fit together, somehow. Almost perfectly.  
  
Thranduil doesn’t dwell on it for too long before sleep starts seeping into him. As he drifts off, he can feel lips against his forehead, and fingers brushing stray strands of hair away from his face. Then, dreams.  
  
-  
  
“I don’t suppose you want to try last night again, considering we didn’t even—well.”  
  
Bard is seated at Thranduil’s kitchen table, wearing one of Thranduil’s shirts (“I’m surprised you even own a regular t-shirt,” Bard had joked, for which Thranduil tossed the shirt straight at his face) while Thranduil prepares tea.  
  
He’s aiming for casual, Thranduil knows, but he can see the nervous set of his shoulders, the way his fingers tap anxiously against the surface of the table. It’s like he expects Thranduil to kick him out at any minute.  
  
Thranduil sets a mug of tea down in front of Bard, and moves to take the seat across from him before saying, “Breakfast first, then we can talk about it.” His gaze meets Bard’s. “And maybe lunch tomorrow also, if you’d like.”  
  
It’s been a long time since Thranduil has done this, too. But the way Bard smiles at him, blindingly bright and warm, makes Thranduil more than willing to try.

**Author's Note:**

> for the record, bard's friend at the beginning is meant to be that awesome laketown woman who calls out alfrid's bullshit in BOFA, you know the one.
> 
> thanks for reading! :')


End file.
